The Greenwich Junction depot sits forgotten and disintegrating by a rail crossing in Salem, N.Y, off Route 22. You can see it is a beautiful building and I’ve had my eye on it for some time.

Today we are getting the first real storm of this winter, and storms are emotional for me. I spent a lot of time on Bedlam Farm alone after I moved here, and I can say with certainty that I would not have made it through without Rose, and then Lenore.  Rose gave me the courage to deal with it, Lenore, a thread of love to hang onto. I see now that the storms were frightening to me, a long-time city boy and suburbanite and some of those blizzards – those long, rough, bitterly cold Canadian howlers, leaving tons of snow and ice everywhere. Storms were difficult, very lonely experiences for me. When I see a storm coming, I sometimes start to drift back to that frightening and unspeakably lonely place, painful and beautiful memories,  Rose and I setting out into the barn night after night bringing food, water and order to chaos. I never imagined loneliness as it appeared on this farm in the winter sometimes.

I am not alone anymore, and storms are different. Around me, Storm Center transforms the very idea of nature into just another warning. Storm Center loves Climate Change, and is making a lot of money off of it. But I am far from that.  I remember just before Maria came that I decided I would not succumb to the idea of my storms as lonely and frightening experiences. I would see them as beautiful and natural, and I would go out – almost always with a dog in tow – and seek out the beauty of the winter pasture, on the farm and off.  Because there was more beauty than there was sadness and loneliness, and I saw that through the viewfinder, driving one road after another. My camera has changed my idea of winter (my wife, also). Now a storm is a chance for me to dig deep into my heart and capture the particular beauty of winter, and never see storms in that dark way again.